An average movie

To be honest, I have never been a huge fan of ‘Mary Poppins’ (since I have Disney+, I should re-watch it at some point though) but since I have a weak spot for Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, I was quite eager to check this movie. Well, even though it was a decent watch and easily better than most live-action movies produced by Disney, to be honest, I was  still not really impressed by the damned thing though. Basically, it is a rather well known fact that P.L. Travers reluctantly gave the rights to her precious character, that she was really difficult during the production and that she eventually didn’t like the movie at all. Well, even though it might have sounded interesting on paper, unfortunately, in my opinion, it was actually insufficient to fill in 2 hours of running time, at least, not with the way it was developed by John Lee Hancock. Basically, they kept repeating some scenes usually involving Travers being a pain in the ass over and over again. The flashback scenes, while they were important to give some background to the main character, had the same issue. Indeed, after 2 or 3 of these flashbacks, we actually got the point that her father was a fun and whimsical guy but also probably a bipolar alcoholic so these scenes became quickly rather repetitive as well. They were a few scenes that did stand out though, like the one when P.L. Travers relived a dramatic speech from her father (easily the best scene in this movie) and the surprise meeting between Disney and Travers in England (a meeting which obviously never happened). At least, there was a solid cast and it has been a while since Emma Thompson gave such a strong performance. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still fairly entertaining and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.